Yet a raid requires only TWO tanks but SEVEN healers. If the shortage was because of classes, then it would effect healers more than tanks.

If there is a problem with DPS queuing 45 mins for a raid, then I'm not sure it is a problem Blizzard can easily fix, except for making it attractive and lucrative for geared tanks to do 'old content'.

Heres a few simple reasons:
1) THE TANK MUST KNOW TACTICS: It is expected that both tanks know the tactics for each and every fight. To a large degree it doesn't matter if healers don't know the tactics as long as they heal, or DPS know the tactics as long as they DPS. There is more onus on a tank to know what he is doing.

Notice a trend where wipes happen a lot in LFR? It is on fights which require even DPS and Healers to know boss-specific tactics.

2) THE TANK MUST BE GOOD AT LEADING: In a lot of LFRs the tank is the one that leads the way. Yes some raids linear, but sometimes you have a room full of trash and 'the route which we always take when doing this raid' is not obvious, and people get nervous if they don't know it themselves. What trash is usually skipped? Will people shout and moan if I do it wrong?

3) YOU ARE IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Random DPS barely get noticed unless they do something terribly wrong or afk. Same with healers. With tanks you are in the spotlight. Everyone knows who is tanking and all eyes are on you whilst you are doing it. People get worried about making mistakes, but it is made even worse for tanks because you are in the spotlight and if you cock up everybody knows about it. If you aren't confident, this can be very off putting.

I'm sure there are other reasons as well but if you look at what I've listed, the reason people don't queue as Tanks is because of SOCIAL FACTORS, which is nothing Blizzard can change.

Tanks need to know the boss mechanics because ultimately its them who are positioning bosses and reacting to a lot of what happens. Tanks need to be good leaders and be able to handle being in the spotlight. Not everyone is cut out for this - especially in the toxic environment of LFR. It is much easier to tag along as DPS or Healer and not really understand the tactics, and just fade into the background.

The only way we are going to get more tanks in LFR is either a) bribery or b) a complete rework of the necessity of a tanking role in LFR. Or of couse c) DPS just have to learn to deal with it.

I say this as someone who always does LFR as a tank.

"If you look out of the window as a human being, at nature, all of nature is unconditionally and absolutely beautiful wherever it is. Whether it's a jungle. Whether it's a desert. Whether it's the Arctic wastes. Or even your own back garden. The only ugly things you will ever see when you look out of the window are things made by man." - Stephen Fry

Group wipes and tank makes one mistake or zero mistakes, they are put up for vote kick almost immediately. DPS who are AFK or putting out sub 40k DPS are never kicked and if anyone calls them out, they band together and vote kick that person. So why would anyone want to ever tank in LFR for these worthless people? I made the call when LFR came out that I'd never tank it considering the way the worthless players verbally abuse tanks trying to learn the fights.

I say flat out, every player who cares about WoW should avoid LFR. Leave it for the dregs of the community to wallow in. Every tier it becomes more and more a place for horrible narcissists and social misfits to abuse one another.

cannot support this statement. I have never been kicked out of an LFR after a wipe and I can be very direct about people wasting my time.

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Hey guys, I am going to que for the new wing of LFR today soon as I get on.

That's exactly why nobody want to tank in LFR. You're probably the one yelling after every tank as soon as they mak a single mistake and ragequit.

Just one question for you. Why the fuck you're still going in LFR?

Currently I'm going into LFR because I recently resubbed and I need 1handers so I can find a guild to progress through Normal/HM content. Otherwise I wouldn't, because is have no need to.

And I don't yell at tanks or anyone else in LFR. I'm a firm believer that LFR is always going to be filled with low skilled/AFK players, and I'm not going to bitch about it when I go in, it doesn't solve anything.

Just because I bring up a valid point doesn't warrant your assumptions. The attitude you portray here, however, is one I see in a lot of people who do complain consistently in LFR.

Doesn't matter if you're a good tank or a bad tank. Everyone who tanks will get shit on in LFR at some point, probably sooner rather than later. I'm gearing up my shaman Enhance spec (Ele is mainly flex/bit of normal) at the moment and I see it day in day out. I couldn't care less if the Tank sucks, he doesn't need to be good. For the love of god just don't berate the guy and kick him so we have to wait 20 fucking minutes for a new one who will be equally as shit.

The problem isn't the amount of classes that can tank, its a deeper issue then that. I could write a fifteen page paper discussing the reasons behind the long LFR queues, but i'll sum it all up here.

-All the good tanks have guilds who clear normal/heroic weekly, they have no reason to dip into LFR anymore (and frankly why would they?). All the competent but under geared tanks do flex instead of LFR because it eliminates the freeloaders and people who refuse to perform at a baseline level (dps doing what i did as a tank in dungeon heroic blues im looking at you). As an extension of this, next expac you'll see drastically lower que times because the first patch of the first expansion tanks will be looking to gear again by any means. This will taper off further into the expansion. As a final note, why would a tank geared through normal sit through LFR "progression"? LFR sometimes takes more time on my healer alt to complete a wing of, then it takes us to clear to paragons. (that's one night of 3 hours, 13 bosses, its on normal ofc but still).

-LFR is hostile, ignorant, and annoying. As a tank, most of us take a semi-leadership role, the best of us also take pride in knowing nearly everything we need to know about a raid or dungeon. So when people come in direct conflict with ethier us, our friends, or innocent bystanders it causes headaches that are worth avoiding entirely.

- You can't freeload as a tank ever. If you're caught slacking or going afk you directly affect how a raidfinder will go and at what speed. You get called out really quickly. This is why i feel alot of people don't tank RF. Tanking isn't hard, having the extra knowledge to excell takes a bit more work then other classes "maybe" but tanking itself is easy.

-This is more personal preference but: I hate other tanks, period. You know all that stuff i was saying about taking pride in knowing my class, encounters, etc? Well, heres the negative side of that. Other tanks who are clearly slacking, dragging ass, don't know fights and even worse don't ask? big problem. If my co-tank, off-tank, what have you can't communicate and also has no knowledge on how the fight goes? it really bothers me. Worse, are tanks who don't know how to play their class at all. you can honestly list any tank in the game, tell me that they are "squishy" and i can 75% of the time tell you why. So how is a tank being squishy important to my arguement? Well, if i can pick up why other tanks are squishy just by talking to other players and glancing at my skada meters, then their is absolutely no excuse on why a tank can't quickly do ten minutes of basic class research to suck slightly less in RF. This solves two fundemental problems. Firstly, it lessens the chance that a new tank will have a bad experience in LFR, increasing the chance that he'll come back in. Secoundly, it makes more experienced tanks more likely to notice the effort and appreciate it. This will cycle fresh blood into the queues and reduce wait times.

- I think it fundamentally boils down to the simple fact that dps are competitive amogst one another, so if a dps is doing shitty dps most of the other dps don't really care all that much because they're competing for the tops slots. However, tanks have to work together and carry an equal load, when the other tank doesn't carry his share, hes letting the entire group down and that's a headache i'd rather avoid. Healers work alot like dps, in that they are competitive the difference being that any healing that isn't getting done is generally picked up by healers who are competing to do as much healing as they can, which honestly, is awesome design.

TLDR: Hate to break it to you bub, but LFR just isn't appealing to tanks with flex in the game. Blizzard can't fix the will of the available tanks. LFR players have to look inwards to find the solution instead of pointing at the lack of tanks.

Would it be helpful to have a thumbs up or down button to associated a players performance in raid groups, not just for tanks but for all players. Let the raid vote on each other’s performance and make it a linkable stat. Want in a pug link you social ranking, might keep people from being asses?

unfortunately people would only be bothered to vote when they want to vote down, and not enough would take the time to to vote up when they are pleased with the situation (contentment breeds apathy, frustration breeds action)

also i don't know how this would solve the paucity of tanks in any direct manner...

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Originally Posted by Cheekun

- I think it fundamentally boils down to the simple fact that dps are competitive amogst one another, so if a dps is doing shitty dps most of the other dps don't really care all that much because they're competing for the tops slots. However, tanks have to work together and carry an equal load, when the other tank doesn't carry his share, hes letting the entire group down and that's a headache i'd rather avoid. Healers work alot like dps, in that they are competitive the difference being that any healing that isn't getting done is generally picked up by healers who are competing to do as much healing as they can, which honestly, is awesome design.

This is an interesting idea, admit i like to see DPS be crappy because it inflates my ego when i am doing better or even best DPS, but there is very little psychological feedback (even flawed and irrational feedback, as in the case of DPS) to satisfy that i am tanking well or not.

unfortunately people would only be bothered to vote when they want to vote down, and not enough would take the time to to vote up when they are pleased with the situation (contentment breeds apathy, frustration breeds action)

also i don't know how this would solve the paucity of tanks in any direct manner...

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This is an interesting idea, admit i like to see DPS be crappy because it inflatse my ego when i am doing better or even best DPS, but there is very little psychological feedback (even flawed and irrational feedback, as in the case of DPS) to satisfy that i am tanking well or not.

Fuck that. I want to win against winners.

Even in LFR, I try to find that equallly/better geared player who is actually pushing his DPS, whisper him, and have a friendly competition within the run.

If I just wanted to be amongst the top of an LFR DPS meter, I could probably ignore every other GCD and still do so. I want to compete with winners and myself.

So, last night (Monday, the day BEFORE reset, when supposedly all the scrubs are left to finish their weekly LFR runs) I wanted to finish off my sigils of wisdom on my warrior tank. I did practically all the LFRs up to SoO part 1: MSV both halves, Heart of Fear, Terrace, etc and amazingly, even in the Pinnacle of Storms, we one shot everything and did it in a VERY timely fashion. Even fucking Durumu was a 1 shot. Hell, Lei Shen faced a FULL 25 man raid in P3, not a single person died. I also got my satchel on every single run. I was so enamored of my good fortune, that even though I was valor capped, had obtained all my sigils and definitely didn't need any loot even for off spec, I finished off the last run which was 1st part HoF so that meant Garalon and Wind Lord...

I don't know why I felt like sharing this anecdotal story, but given the horror stories contained here in this thread, I just wanted to bring a little hope that LFR CAN be a good (or at least tolerable) experience, even the day before the weekly reset...